The 11q23.3 genomic region - rs964184 - is associated with cardiovascular disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

AbstractRheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory disease associated with high riskof cardiovascular (CV) events. Recently, the rs964184 polymorphism has beenassociated with coronary artery disease in nonrheumatic Caucasian individuals. 2160Spanish RA patients were genotyped for the rs964184 polymorphism. Sex, age atdiagnosis and traditional CV risk factors (diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia and smokinghabit) were associated with increased risk of CV events. Interestingly, RA patientscarrying the rs964184 GG genotype had significantly higher risk of CV eventsthan those with CC genotype [hazard ratio (HR)=2.91, 95% confidence interval(CI): 1.36–6.26, P =0.006] after adjusting the results for sex, age at diagnosisand traditional CV risk factors. Our results indicate that rs964184 polymorphismis associated with CV disease in RA.Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a complex polygenic autoim-mune inflammatory disease with high risk of cardiovascu-lar (CV) complications (1) that are the result of acceleratedatherosclerosis (2). Besides traditional CV risk factors andchronic systemic inflammation (3), recent studies have alsoemphasized the implication of genetic factors in the risk ofaccelerated atherosclerosis observed in RA (4). As CV dis-ease is the most common cause of premature mortality in RA,an important step forward might be to identify high-CV risk